The competition and excitement of professional football engenders a religious following amongst millions of fans. Fans score the performance of players and teams season after season. These fans frequently organize formal and informal pools to capitalize on their own knowledge of the game and their desire to compete with other fans. As a result of this keen interest, numerous football games have been devised to mimic various aspects of professional football. However, none of these games combine the reality of actual football action with the ease and simplicity of computer graphics.
One of the more sophisticated professional football games is Fantasy Football by Allpro Publishing Company, Van Nuys, California. This game is played in conjunction with the information reported in Fantasy Football Magazine. Each Fantasy Football team is set up using actual NFL players. The game is based upon a point system of the actual offensive performance of various NFL players where each Fantasy Football team receives points for their players performances. All line-ups and head-to-head games are decided by a Commissioner who also must mail weekly copies of the league's standings along with any other roster changes to the team members. It is also the responsibility of each Commissioner to collect money and account for wins and losses of the point money for each team. The Fantasy Football game thereby requires that the Commissioner perform all of the mailings, calculate all of the scores and manually administer the drafting of players.
Another popular football game is Strat-O-Matic football. Unlike the Fantasy Football League's use of the actual NFL performances, the Strat-O-Matic game uses cards, dice and a game board to determine wins/losses. To play Strat-O-Matic, a defensive team guesses the opposing team's offensive play. If the guess is wrong, the points accorded each team are based upon what the dice show multiplied by the winning offensive/defensive strategy. The Strat-O-Matic game thereby lacks the realism of actual NFL scores by relying more on the luck of the dice than the player's knowledge of the game.
Another board game, known as Pro Football Franchise, is a trading game where game players buy, sell and trade team members in order to construct the best possible starting roster. However, the Pro Football Franchise does not include an option for playing actual football.
Several computerized football games also are available. One game called TGIFG allows up to 32 individual players to pit themselves against a programmed computer and other players in determining the rank of the 14 weekly games throughout the entire season. However, TGIFG does not base wins/losses on actual NFL games.
Another computer game is the MSFL Pro Football League. The MSFL game is a computerized prediction service based upon each team's weaknesses and strengths. Wins for games are determined by an automated analysis of these factors. However, the MSFL is more of a component to be used in conjunction with actual NFL games than as a computerized football game to be played as a substitute.
The various available games, therefore, do not provide for an easy to use football game that is based upon the actual performances of live football action. Moreover, those games that do incorporate the results of live weekly action require a substantial personal effort in order to make the game work.